Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad
Jacqueline Chow:
Tun Dr. Mahathir thank you for joining us on Meet the Boss TV. Now Tun you are the longest serving Prime Minister of Malaysia. You are one of Asia’s most influential leaders. Now you spearheaded the phenomenal growth of Malaysia’s economy. In fact your foresight and vision have been credited with much of Malaysia’s success. So what lessons can you share with business leaders about setting a vision?
Tun Mahathir:
Well first of all, of course, you must think about things which are achievable. It may be a little bit extraordinary but they must be achievable.
Jacqueline Chow:
You once said, “To be a great leader one needs to have good strategies, be knowledgeable and able to predict the future.” Now are these three qualities you think also necessary to be a great business leader?
Tun Mahathir:
Yeah, certainly they are. Yeah.
Tun Mahathir:
Well when you plan something in the future you need to have some conviction. At the same time, of course, you must be prepared to take risks.
Jacqueline Chow:
How do you convince your team as well though that it’s okay to actually take that little risk?
Tun Mahathir:
Well you have to trust in people. I think you’re changing people every now and again because you are not satisfied with them is not really the way to manage people. You have to get the people working for you to understand your – what you have in mind and to tell them how to carry out things. That’s better than changing people because when you change people you are up against having to accommodate just increases of somebody else that you are not familiar with and that creates a problem. My team has stayed with me or some of the people who work with me has stayed with me for over 30 years. They have not –
Jacqueline Chow:
30 years?
Tun Mahathir:
Yes. They are still with me even today.
Jacqueline Chow:
Wow. So how do you keep them with you for 30 years?
Tun Mahathir:
Well is a matter of how you conduct your relationship with them. I mean you mustn’t be too bossy but you must establish a good relationship so that they look upon you not just as a boss but someone they can relate to.
Jacqueline Chow:
So describe what kind of relationship you have with your team members.
Tun Mahathir:
Well I treat them like my friends and no matter what rank they are they may be just a security officer, for example, but I treat them as my friends. I talk with them. I discuss things with them. I’m not aloof with regard to my staff anyway.
Tun Mahathir:
Well I used to say that when you are short to be noticed you stand on a soap box. So for me the Petronas Twin Towers is my soap box, so to speak because then I can be tall and be seen. So you have to do something that is out of the ordinary so that people will notice you. When I started as Prime Minister, Malaysia was quite unknown. People keep on asking, “Where is that? Where is that?” So in order to be noticed we have to do certain things that will strike people as something radical and unexpected and because of that they notice us.
Jacqueline Chow:
A bit of a rebel at heart?
Tun Mahathir:
Well it’s very – it’s great fun.
Jacqueline Chow:
I’m glad you had some fun with it as well. Talk about some projects lessons learning for business leaders about projects that perhaps didn’t do so well. For example, the Perwaja Steel didn’t so well. What lessons do you learn from it and once again, how can we relate that to business leadership?
Tun Mahathir:
When you’re building something you have to deal with people who have no experience. At that time Malaysia had no one, almost no one with the experience of running a steel mill. It’s a very big project and, of course, they bungled things up. They didn’t know how to operate. They didn’t know how to manage their staff and they are not familiar with the technology, etc. Because of that we fail but to me it is an investment in acquisition of skills and knowledge, experience.
We tried changing staff, for example. We tried getting new technologies in. Eventually we found someone who could manage but then the company had already incurred a lot of debts and this is what will be mentioned all the time. That it is a failure because of these debts but the fact remains that today it is a functioning industry. It’s run by Malaysians and they’re making money out of it if you disregard the losses incurred by the previous people who are running the industry.
Jacqueline Chow:
So to business leaders what lesson do you learn from that?
Tun Mahathir:
Well one of the things that people must learn is that when going into business the cost you sold much more than what you pretty because there will be pillars. There’ll be a lot of shortcomings and you have to overcome them. It takes a long time before you can really get things running smoothly. So unless you have deep pockets you shouldn’t try to go into things that you really do not have enough knowledge about. But this is a government entity and it’s the government’s policy to introduce industries, heaving industries. We know we took a risk. There have been failures among the projects but there have also been successes.
Jacqueline Chow:
You know you once said, “I’ve gone against the stream many, many times and it just so happens in most instances I’ve been proven correct.” Now you’ve shown just that when you stood your ground and rejected IMF’s financial aid during the Asian crisis which proved to be the absolutely right decision because Malaysia recovered remarkably well. Where does that inner belief come from?
Tun Mahathir:
I always question the conventional ways of doing things. I examine them and certainly in the case of the financial crisis when we were told that we should have a surplus budget and we should have increased interest rates and do all kinds of things every time I examine all the advice I find that they will have negative results. So we decided not to follow.
Jacqueline Chow:
Give me some examples of when you question convention.
Tun Mahathir:
When we decided to have an automotive industry we were told that no, this is not the thing for a developing country. I asked myself, “Those people who have an automotive industry they must have started with something quite small. Now why can’t we start small the way they did and slowly grow up?” They said, “No. Unless you can have a big volume this is not possible.” But we tried. We cut corners. We now produce almost 200,000 cars. Proton is exporting to Thailand, for example, more than 5,000 cars and that’s a big export for a small company.
Jacqueline Chow:
Have you always questioned convention since you were a child?
Tun Mahathir:
Yes. I have always been quite radical in my views about things. I don’t accept what I’m told just like that even if people have been drinking all the time it doesn’t mean that it is correct. If you study history you’ll find that what is good at one time will change because it after some time people find out the defects. The thing to do is, of course, to look for the defects in conventional ways of doing things and to devise new ways.
Jacqueline Chow:
From a business point of view do you think that is necessary for every great business leader?
Tun Mahathir:
Yes. It’s necessary all the time. Whatever you are doing today may not be the right thing to do in the future. So you must think and see the defects in the systems that you are using.
Tun Mahathir:
So even in business – I have a small business now. I run a bakery.
Jacqueline Chow:
Yes, I was going to ask you about that.
Tun Mahathir:
Yeah. I find that is very interesting, of course, but there are so many things to be attended to. As you go along you learn quite a lot of things.
Jacqueline Chow:
Why a bakery business?
Tun Mahathir:
I notice that the Japanese produce very good bread. Every time I go to Japan I would buy the bread. So I thought I’d bring that kind of bread making to Malaysia. Find, of course, trying to train locals is a problem. You train them. They acquire skills and then they leave house. Some of them can be dishonest. So these are the different things that happens that you have to learn to manage.
Jacqueline Chow:
So how do you manage that?
Tun Mahathir:
Well sometimes by talking. Sometimes by trying to inspire them, telling that this business is also their business because they make money out of it and try and get them to identify themselves with the business.
Jacqueline Chow:
How has the process been so far for you?
Tun Mahathir:
Well there have been ups and downs. You need very deep pockets if you want to go into any business. It’s been four years now and we still don’t make profits yet but we have to spend more money to expand otherwise it will not make a profit.
Jacqueline Chow:
So what is it like? You managed a whole country before and now you’re managing a bakery business.
Tun Mahathir:
There are a lot of similarities but of course you attend to more to the nitty-gritty than with a country. With a country you have other people doing things for you but here you have to know in detail what is happening.
Tun Mahathir:
You have to know where you are going. You have to set a target for yourself and you have to know the environment. You have to have knowledge and you have to learn the skills, the technology or the way of doing things, of managing as it are. There are lots of knowledge input inside a business.
Jacqueline Chow:
So which role do you prefer?
Tun Mahathir:
Both.